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Austin smiled at her a little. Anya was nice but the simple fact was that being an artist wasn’t really something that made him that useful around the Legion. At least he was in the fifth so not much was expected of him anyways but if he wanted to get any respect from some of the higher ranking cohorts he needed to prove his worth as a fighter and he didn’t think that would be happening any time soon. Still, he didn’t want to say that out loud especially since Anya was just trying to help. “Thanks. It is really nice to uh meet someone who doesn’t automatically think an artist is going to umm…suck…as a legionnaire.”

It wasn’t that big a deal. It didn’t mean he was going to stop doing his job or anything like that but it was good to know your limits. Something which Anya apparently didn’t know herself. Austin gave her a curious look but for the most part he didn’t want to push her into talking about anything that would be awkward for her. “You’ll get it in time and don’t worry too much. I bet you would be pretty good at ice skating even without your powers. Maybe they just help you out with it, kind of like mine with my painting.”

The praise from Mackenzie was certainly putting him in a good mood. For some reason knowing that Mac thought so highly of his work made him feel like he could take on the world. Probably not literally of course. He was still pretty much a wimp but dammit maybe he could make a few more awesome paintings while on this kind of high. At this rate he might have to because he was pretty excited about the prospect of getting to see her again even if it was just in his junk 5th barracks room.

“Well if I'm uh...going to have a cute girl over I guess I probably need to clean up a bit.” He chuckled nervously as he stretched to get the painting into position. He couldn’t really watch Mac while he was doing this but he hoped she could tell he was just kidding...at least about the cleaning up thing. He didn’t want her to think he was a total slob after all. For now though he had to make sure to get this painting juuuuuuust right.

“Almost got it...I think...” He said as he stretched to get the painting into position. He was close he just needed to stretch just a little more. Being the tallish guy he was there weren’t many places he couldn’t reach but in the end the bed proved to be more unstable than he had anticipated. Just as he thought he was about to get things situated the mattress shifted underneath him and that was all she wrote. With a cry and flailing of arms Austin was sent tumbling. For a moment he might have been flying the way he was flapping his arms but that moment quickly passed as he went crashing to the floor with his painting landing on top of him for good measure.

Her little flirtatious comment set him to blushing like he felt he never had before. Was that comment directed at him? It probably had to be since there was no one else in the room but if so exactly what other view was she thinking of right now? Austin’s imagination was running wild on him and most of the thoughts were making his blush deepen so he decided it would probably be best to let that one go for now. After all he didn’t really know how to respond other than just a stuttered ‘I can too’ and he didn’t want to seem even dorkier than he already had been.

Fortunately she provided him a welcome distraction as she mentioned the possibility of hanging up more of his art. “R…really? You would be up for hanging up a few more of my pieces?” Honestly he was flattered. It was likely Mac didn’t know how much this really meant to him but to think that she actually liked his art, not just the painting he had made for her, well it might be the first time someone had really taken an interest in him like this. “I would like that Mackenzie. I could pick you out some things if you like. Then you would get to choose which view you wanted or you could stop by our uh barracks sometime.”

All of a sudden Austin was feeling really good about all this. So much so that when she asked him to climb up on her bed and help her hang the painting he didn’t even think twice about it. “Sure. Here you tell me where to move it so we can get it centered and I’ll get it up there.” Climbing up beside her he brought the painting up and held it against the wall for her to see. “How does it look back there?” He called to here without looking back as he awaited her instructions on how he could make adjustments.

Mac was genuinely happy to see him which helped to relax his nerves even more. It was easy to say something and not really mean it but that never seemed to be the case with Mackenzie. She seemed real to him, down to earth. It was one of the things Austin liked about her and seeing that things hadn’t changed since the last time they had been together was nice. Austin had never met someone he could just be comfortable being around as much as he could with her but Mac always made it easy somehow.

Austin chuckled a little at her eagerness and went to pick up the canvas while Mac opened the door. “Great. I’m glad I’m not taking you away from anything.” He said as he brought the painting inside. “Sorry it took me so long to bring it over. Training has been crazy but uh...you probably know that.” Once he was inside he set the painting down against a wall and took a moment to look around. “So this is your room? I like it. It’s really nice...” He happened to glance back at Mackenzie at that moment just in time to catch her blushing. That was new. He liked it too and thought it made her look very pretty. So distracted was he by the sight that he forgot what he was going to say next and it took him a moment before he spoke again. “Have you uh...thought about where you want to hang it? Maybe on the wall close to your bed...so you can always see it?”

Well this was certainly new. Austin hadn’t ever really had the opportunity to make it over to this side of the barracks before. Up until now his experience had primarily been with his fellow members of the 5th cohort. Of course he occasionally ran into members of other cohorts while he was out and about, the primary reason he was over here tonight was because Mac was from the 2nd and he was coming to deliver her painting, but other than those chance meetings he rarely had any reason to go any higher than the 4th’s area.

The experience was interesting to say the least. He had known that the higher ranked cohorts had it nice but ‘nice’ didn’t really do it justice. Austin couldn’t put his finger on it but things just seemed more organized here, fancier, like people actually took pride in their cohort or, at the very least were forced to. That wasn’t all either. Austin had known the legionaries of the 1st and 2nd were better fighters but as he got closer to Mac’s quarters it became very obvious. The demigods he passed were becoming more and more imposing by the minute and Austin, who was most definitely not the strongest warrior in the legion, felt somewhat out of place.

The artist found himself walking faster and avoiding eye contact which was bad because carrying around a big canvas was already hard enough. Add in haste and not watching where you were going and Austin had already gotten more than a few death glares which consequently worsened the problem by making him walk even faster and pay even less attention. It was a self-defeating cycle and by the time that he propped the wrapped painting up outside Mac’s door he was confident that he would be receiving a few death threats on his way back tonight but he was finally here and that was what counted.

Pausing outside Mac’s door for a moment to calm his nerves Austin lifted a corner of the cloth wrapping to insure the work was intact. Once he was satisfied he gave a little nod and stood back up mentally preparing himself. After all he hadn’t seen Mac since that night on the rooftop and it wasn’t like they had spent a lot of time talking about things then either. Oh it had been pretty awesome, Austin wasn’t complaining, but where did that leave them? What did it all mean?

He had it all worked out. He was going to say something cool and smooth like ’Hey girl, you must work at Starbucks because I like you a latte’ but now that he was here and the moment of truth had arrived he was still pretty nervous. The problem was that just standing here with people looking at him funny wasn’t really helping. That being the case he sucked in a big breath, put on his best smile and knocked. Dear gods he hoped this was the right room.

The corners of Austin’s lifted in a little smirk as she talked about getting lost in her music. That was precisely what he had been talking about and at once he thought that he could understand this girl quite well. Her skating and her music was a lot like what he did on a canvas. It was art and it was just as easy to get lost in one form as it was another because sometimes you had something that just wouldn’t go away until you expressed it whether that be painting or skating or any art form really.

He pondered this thought for a moment but before he had spent too long on it the girl had spoken up with another question except this time it wasn’t about his painting. Instead it was about his mom. This made Austin’s smile broaden a little. He couldn’t blame her for not knowing. The goddess of rainbows and messengers kind of got lost in the mix when you had Mars and Jupiter taking most of the glory. Still, he didn’t mind telling her.

“Goddess actually.” He corrected good naturedly. “And don’t worry about it too much she’s not really well known around camp for winning lots of battles or anything. She’s the goddess of messages and colors. Rainbows actually. Here let me…” Austin reached for her hands before stopping short in a moment of nervousness. Nodding and pointing towards them cautiously he gave her a shy smile and continued. “uh…May I? I think you’ll like what I umm have to show you.”

Austin was fairly used to embarrassing himself especially around girls but at least Anya seemed pretty nice. That probably wouldn't prevent him from doing something again but given the choice he would take merely being amusing over being openly mocked any day of the week. For Anya's part it seemed to be the first of the two options and as she offered him the earpiece he decided he could live with that.

"Uh t...thanks." He said as he took the earbud and slipped it into his ear. He was unsure of what to expect but he was curios to find out what had brought her here and his curiosity served to bring back his smirk and put him at ease somewhat.

"A figure skater?" He asked curiously as the music began. "That's uh cool. I've never met a figure skater before." Austin listened to the tune and nodded along with the beat. He often listened to music while he worked and could understand why she might want to use it in her routine. It was good, kind of like art for his ears like a lot of good music was and he liked it. "It's good. I mean I uh can see why you like it."

Austin considered for a moment. He would have liked to help her but he didn't know the first thing about dancing himself or skating himself. Colors, shapes and pictures he was familiar with but he would have been hard pressed to come up with a dance move other than the old stand and sway and he didn't think that would help Anya out at all. "So uh is watching the sunset helping any? Usually when I get a block, thinking about something else for a while helps...usually."